Login

Garage Screen, a program of film screenings on contemporary art and culture, was launched in 2012 and introduces viewers to notable examples of Russian and foreign feature films, documentaries, and experimental films. Since its inception, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art has selected and shown films and videos examining issues of contemporary art and culture in all their manifestations, rare documentary films on the lives and lifestyles of prominent and little-known artists, musicians, architects, and performing artists, as well as films about the creation of exhibitions and works of art.

In 2016, the Garage Screen program was held on the roof of Garage. Usually closed to the public, the Museum rooftop was transformed into an open-air cinema outfitted with innovative equipment that could not be found anywhere else in Russia or the CIS. In 2017 and 2018, film screenings were held on Garage Square in a summer cinema pavilion designed by GRACE architects. The 350-seat pavilion had a mirror surface, reflecting the architecture of the Museum building.

When the Museum decided to turn to a competition for the design of a new pavilion in the fall of 2018, it engaged Strelka as the administrator of the event. Between October 17 and November 9, 2018, one hundred and thirty-one architects and architectural bureaus from all over Russia registered for the competition.

Interview: James Mary O’Connor FAIA (Winter 2017)

After receiving his Diploma in Architecture from the Dublin Institute of Technology and BS in Architecture from Trinity College in Dublin, James received his Masters in Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles while a Fulbright Scholar in the U.S. Shortly after his time as a student in Charles Moore’s Master Class at UCLA, he joined the Moore firm in Los Angeles, now Moore Ruble Yudell. Beginning in the late 1980s, he was involved in the firm’s many projects in Germany, many of which dealt with masterplanning and the construction of large housing, primarily in Berlin. Subsequently, he was involved in the Potatisåkern Master Plan & Housing, as well as the Bo01 Housing Exhibition, both in Malmö, Sweden.
James was MRY’s point person in its subsequent involvement with the firm’s many projects in the People’s Republic of China, beginning with their winning competition proposal for the Century Center project in Beijing. Although unbuilt, it didn’t escape the notice of the Chinese, who invited the firm to participate in a competition for the Tianjin Xin-He large neighborhood masterplan—which they won. This was followed by the 2004 Chun Sen Bi An Housing Masterplan competition in the city of Chongqing, located in central China—completed in 2010. This high profile project resulted in a number of affordable and high-end housing projects throughout China. The firm’s most remarkable sustainability project was the COFCO Agricultural Eco-Valley Master Plan project outside Beijing, envisioned to become the first net zero-carbon project of its kind in the world.
In the meantime, the firm’s focus in China has evolved from its concentration on housing to institutional projects, such as the Shanghai University of Technology‘s research buildings. In the meantime MRY has been noted as a leader in the design of campus projects in the U.S. and abroad, as well as numerous government projects—courthouses and embassies.

COMPETITIONS: In our last conversation, we talked about the whole issue of Berlin's identity and what approach one should use in reconstructing the urban fabric between East and West—where the wall used to be.

Axel Schultes: Maybe I learned something during a recent lecture I gave in Palermo (Italy). Afterwards, some German specialists in philosophy and German thinking—brilliant people, I must say—came up to me and said, 'What you said about Berlin and what you are doing there with the Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzleiamt), for us is what Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin talked about, especially when they looked at Italy and the cities in Italy. We noticed immediately in your work that (same) issue of porosity.' Both used this term: Benjamin wrote a small article on Naples, and Bloch wrote about Italy as a whole.

We always had a tendency to avoid the term, 'transparency.' Transparency is usually the use of glass to make buildings less alienating to someone outside. But for us, glass is no material to create spaces; so transparency as we see it is depths of spaces or layering. Porosity is something much more precise—what we strive for. We wanted the same effect in Friedrichstrasse (Interior Mall): it should not be this close-up thing of the Galeries Lafayette (Jean Nouvel) or Ungers, where you only have some holes in it. Porosity for us is like a sponge—to enable a building to fill up with life, to turn a private space into a public one by penetrating it with a public space. The old buildings in Berlin are examples of this, with two, three, sometimes even four interior public spaces.

Berlin Baumschulenweg Crematory (1993)

COMPETITIONS: You are referring to the interior courtyards (Hinterhöfe)?

AS: Yes. Nothing of this sort exists anymore in Berlin. Most buildings (at the street) are flat, sometimes elegant, sometime ugly. The Galeries Lafayette, with all its glass, is as closed (to the outside) as one of Unger's sandstone buildings. It's the same issue in the construction of every building. Take, for instance, the Berlin Schloss (the palace in the center of Berlin), which was completely demolished after WWII, and which some people think should be resurrected. This has been on our mind constantly.*

It would be such a contrast to urbanism—needing to punch holes in it to get inside—open to all the people and all walks of life. I can give many examples of this, for me very northern, very restrained, very alien to everything which infuses a culture with life. All the people here like Kohlhof, Ungers, Kleihues, etc.; all have that tendency of closing. Even Libeskind—and maybe he doesn't think about it or want to have it appear in such a manner—does it with the Jewish Museum where there is no penetration. There is always this hiding, this animosity to the urban fabric. They are not interested in breaking it up.

Three Finalists: Kaunas M.K. Čiurlionis Concert Centre

Location: Kaunas, Lithuania

Type: Open, international
Number of entries: 177
Process: As a result of the open competition, three finalists were chosen to refine their designs and submit them for final evaluation by the municipality of Kaunas.

In his introduction to Form and Dichroic LIght, Michael Crosbie never mentions the term, “wild card,” to describe Office 52’s participation in the invited competition for the Carnegie Mellon Engineering Building. The four finalists, picked from a list of 17 firms, also included three household names: ZGF, Wilson, and BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski, Jackson). So what possible chance could a firm, which had just recently opened a small office in Portland, Oregon, have against a competition lineup of this magnitude? But as OFFICE 52 Principal, Isaac Campbell explained, as a small firm, “we were quite nimble,” and the $50,000 stipend the firms all received to produce a design could allow OFFICE 52 more time to undertake the research involved than might be the case with a larger office, where a cost controller is constantly focusing on the operation.

The Taoyuan Museum of Arts Competition

The competition for the Taoyuan Museum of Arts is similar to now what has become the typical invited format for major projects in Taiwan. In this case, 14 architectural teams submitted their qualifications, and four qualified for the second competition stage. They were Q-LAB + menacoo architecten, Joe Shih. Architects + Riken Yamamoto and Field Shop, Ricky Liu & Associates, and JJPan and Partners, Architects and Planners + MVRDV.

Southern Branch of the National Central Library and National Repository Library, Taiwan

The primary reason for establishing a “Southern Branch” of Taiwan’s National Central Library And National Repository Library was logical: the main National Central Library was running out of space to store an increasingly large quantity of physical and digital items. One might have assumed this could have all been accomplished by building a large warehouse-type storage facility. Nothing of the kind happened here. The site of the competition announced by the competition organizers for the design of a new building was in a small city of 80,000 in southern Taiwan.

City and Developer as
Infrastructure Catalyst

Not since the Golden Gate Bridge and BART has San Francisco experienced an infrastructure project of the magnitude and importance as the recently completed Transbay Transit Terminal. The subject of a 2007 competition won by Pelli Clarke Pelli (PCP) with Peter Walker Landscape Architects, the project is only missing some rail connections, which will enable passengers to connect to many parts of the state in the foreseeable future.

Commemorating the deaths of 26 victims of a well-publicized school shooting is no small chore. But because of the tragic events at its elementary school in 2012, the village of Sandy Hook has achieved national prominence as a symbol of the gun violence afflicting the nation. Although it is almost impossible to bring closure to such an event, the community did determine that the establishment of a memorial would at least be a positive step in that direction. To arrive at such an important issue as a design for the memorial, it was determined that an international design competition was a logical path to follow.

IMPORTANT NOTICE : Unless otherwise indicated, photographs of buildings and
projects are from professional or institutional archives. All reproduction is prohibited
unless authorized by the architects, designers, office managers, consortia or archives
centers concerned. The Competition Project, Inc. is not held responsible for any
omissions or inaccuracies, but appreciate all comments and pertinent information that
will permit necessary modifications during future updates.